Middle East Focus: Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia: Coming Oil and Gas Wars and Regional Hegemony.......

Arabia Deserta

Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia: Coming Oil and Gas Wars and Regional Hegemony.......

Rattlesnake Ridge

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“Iran has discovered a large gas field in the Caspian Sea with at least 50 trillion cubic feet (some 1.4 trillion cubic meters) of reserves, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi announced on Sunday. The field, in waters 700 meters deep, lies wholly within Iran’s territorial waters, Qasemi explained. He added excluding this new discovery Iran has 11 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves in the Caspian Sea. Mohsen Khojaste-Mehr told the Mehr News Agency that extensive operations are underway to explore new gas deposits across the country which will probably increase the country’s proven gas reserves. The Fifth Five-Year Development Plan (2010-2015) has envisaged boosting the country’s gas production by 250 million cubic meters per day to reach 1.4 billion cubic meters per day. A National Iranian Oil Company director has stated that the country’s natural gas reserves will last up to 100 years. Iran holds the world’s second-largest gas reserves, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy in June. Russia has the biggest reserves of the fuel, BP data show…….”

Official Iranian media also claim they have discovered billions of barrels of petroleum in new reserves. Iran is unlikely to surpass Russia and become holder of the largest reserves of natural gas in the world: Russia has huge unexplored territories. But all these new discoveries do not help the Iranian people as much as they should, not unless they can extract and sell the new crude and the new gas. Not unless the Western sanctions and the 'virtual blockade' is lifted or eased.

Both Iran and Iraq have suffered from years of war and Western sanctions that prevented the full exploration, development, and exploitation of their fields. Iraq conceivably could have petroleum reserves that match those of the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia). Actually Venezuela is for now the reported owner of the world's largest crude reserves, as of a few months ago.

All this introduces an interesting issue of rivalry and strategies in the Middle East. The Saudi regime perceives its strategic interests as best served by keeping the Western sanctions on Iran with the aim of keeping its crude and gas output low, and keeping its people discontented. Hence the push among Saudi and Israeli allies in the United States to keep and even tighten the screws on Iran.

The Saudis may, if they are smart enough, see Iraq as the greatest danger to their aspirations for hegemony in the eastern Arab world. The Saudi regime no doubt perceives its regional interests as best served by continued instability in Iraq. Iraq, being an Arab country, could be a more dangerous rival to the autocratic al-Saud dynasty than Iran under any regime. A fully rehabilitated and prosperous and democratic Iraq would become a formidable rival to the Saudis for influence in the Arab world, hence the fierce Saudi campaign to exacerbate sectarian divisions and hatred against the Shi'as.

In their quest the Saudis have a formidable array of weapons: powerful Western (mainly American) allies, Salafi fifth columns across the Arab world who are as violently anti-Shi'a as anti-Western, and a lot of petro-money to spread around among current and potential allies both in the Middle East and in the West. The last factor, money, is especially important in the United States where the art of accepting laundered foreign political money has been perfected into almost a science by former and current high officials in both the major parties.
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mhg

m.h.ghuloum@gmail.com